FAMILY FALLACIES (The Kate Huntington mystery series #3) (25 page)

Kate knew she was
pushing the woman a bit with her bluntness. She was bracing for the shift, when
Tammy would turn her anger on her for being a bad therapist. One part of Kate’s
mind was mulling over which of her colleagues she would refer Tammy to. There
were a couple who could
probably
work with her, although Kate figured
whichever one of them Tammy ended up with, that colleague might never speak to
her again.

But the shift didn’t
happen. Tammy seemed to actually be listening. Kate was beginning to wonder if
this emergency might end up being a teachable moment.

“Tammy, I think you’re
better off without Mark,” she said again.

The young woman
sniffled. “You may be right, Kate. But how do I let him go?”

Kate leaned forward.
“It will take time, and it will hurt for awhile. But the thing about feelings
is that they
always
change. They either get worse or they get better...
There are things we humans can do to make them better,
or
to make them
worse. Because you didn’t know what else to do, you’ve been doing a lot of the
things that actually make the feelings worse. But now I think you’re in a place
to start learning how to make them better.”

Tammy’s expression
brightened a little. “Really, I can learn how to do that?”

“Yes, but first you
have to learn how to be a good student. I’m not saying we therapists always
know what’s right for a client. We’re human, we make mistakes, and we can be
misinformed, like Sylvia James. But we’re trained to help people learn how to
make their lives better. So when a therapist tells you something, you need to
listen with an open mind. Think about what they’re saying, see if it fits...
Just like you’re doing now. But you need to remember to do that even when what
the therapist is saying is hard to hear.”

“But how do I get over
Mark? It hurts so much.” Tammy’s eyes welled up again.

“Oh, right. Back to
that lesson.” Kate intentionally used a matter-of-fact tone, as she handed
Tammy more tissues. This session was turning into a marathon. She wasn’t going
to encourage any more venting of grief today.

“To get over Mark you
need to do two things. First, you need to acknowledge the grief and let
yourself feel it, knowing that it will go away eventually, and the sooner you
let yourself feel it, the faster it will go away.”

“Are you sure? It feels
like it’ll never go away.”

“I know it
feels
that way now, but like I said, feelings never stay the same forever. The other
thing that will help those bad feelings go away faster is to get angry, and
stay
angry. Reminding yourself of why you threw the cheatin’ son-of-a-bitch out
of your life in the first place, will strengthen your resolve to let him go, so
you can get on with your life.”

This time the anger in
Tammy’s eyes was more than just a flash.

~~~~~~~~

W
hen Audrey pulled up
in front of her parents’ house, she was relieved to see only her mother’s car
in the driveway. She helped Alicia out of her booster seat and led her by the
hand to her mother’s kitchen door. Frances opened it before she could knock.

“Come on in, Alicia.
Grandmom’s baking today and you can help me make cupcakes,” she said.

“Thanks, Mother, for doing
this, at the last minute and all,” Audrey said, and then quietly, so the little
girl who had run ahead of her into the kitchen couldn’t hear, she added,
“You’re sure Dad won’t be home until after I get back?”

“Yes, dear. He said
he’d be home around four.”

“Okay, I’ll see you in
a couple of hours then. Bye, Alicia, Mommy’ll be back soon.”

“Bye, Mommy,” the
little girl said. She was already pulling the cupcake pan out of the cabinet
where she knew her grandmom kept it. She loved cupcakes the best of all.

Ten minutes later when
John Wells returned with the vanilla, his face broke into a big grin at the
sight of his granddaughter standing on a stool, happily stirring batter in a
big bowl. Seeing that smile, Frances knew she was doing the right thing.

“I’ll finish making the
cupcakes, sweetheart. Why don’t you go play with Granddad for awhile?”

Frances washed the
unused batter down the garbage disposal; it would be ruined by the time she got
back. She’d make some more then. She put the new bottle of vanilla in the
cabinet, next to the almost full one that was already there.

Grabbing her purse and
her coat off the hook next to the kitchen door, she went into the living room.
Alicia had dragged the tea set from the toy chest her grandparents kept for her
in the corner of their living room. Her granddad was sitting on the floor,
pretending to drink imaginary tea out of a tiny cup.

“John, I just realized
I have an appointment I forgot about.” She patted her hair to imply that it was
a hairdresser’s appointment. “Can you watch Alicia for a little while? I’ll
have to finish my baking when I get back.”

“Sure,” her husband
said. “We’ll have a ball, won’t we, peanut, just you and me!”

Frances hurried out to
the driveway. She started for her car, then remembered it was low on gas. And
she didn’t have time to make a stop. She needed to get where she was going and
get back before Audrey returned.

She climbed into John’s
car instead and checked the gas gauge. Half a tank. Starting the car, she
backed out of the driveway while one hand fumbled in her purse for her cell
phone. She was running behind schedule.

F
inally, Tammy seemed
stabilized enough that she would probably make it through the rest of the
weekend. The second time the woman asked about becoming her client again, Kate
couldn’t duck the question any longer.

“Before I answer that,
I need to ask you about something else.” Kate paused to make sure she had
Tammy’s full attention. The woman tended to zone out sometimes when the topic
of conversation was not herself. “For quite some time now, I’ve been getting
strange anonymous notes, and they’ve been getting more and more blatantly
threatening, not toward me but toward my family, if I didn’t stop doing
something I’m doing with one of my clients. Trouble is the notes never specify
which client or what exactly I’m supposed to stop doing.”

Tammy was watching her
intently, her forehead furrowed in concentration.

“All this started
around the time that you and Mark were beginning to have serious problems, and
I can’t help wondering if yours was the case the notes were referring to.”

Tammy’s eyebrows shot
up. “What! You think Mark was sending them?”

“Either him, or
possibly you,” Kate said evenly, bracing herself for an explosion.

But Tammy looked hurt
instead. “You think I’m that crazy?” she said in a small voice.

“Not now. You seem more
stable now, but as things were deteriorating with Mark, you were getting more
and more volatile. The notes kept referring to me tearing families apart, destroying
them, and you told me point blank, the last session we had, that if I’d been
doing my job, your marriage wouldn’t be destroyed.”

Tammy straightened in
her chair, blinking rapidly to stem the flow of tears that were trickling down
her cheeks despite her efforts. She was trying to maintain some semblance of
dignity but her voice was child-like as she said, “I didn’t send those notes,
Kate, but I guess that answers my question. I... I’d appreciate a referral.”
She looked down at the wad of tissues clutched in her hands.

Kate’s heart ached for
that scared, hurt child. And she was even liking the adult Tammy Wingate better
than she had. “Actually I will consider working with you again, Tammy, on one
condition. That you go to the in-patient treatment program I recommend. When
you finish up there, we’ll meet and I’ll reassess whether I’m the best
therapist for you at that point.”

An array of emotions
passed across Tammy’s face. Finally she said, “What exactly are these programs
like?”

“Hang on, let me get
out the literature on the one I have in mind.” It was one in California that
specialized in borderline personality disorder. Kate was amazed that such a
facility even existed. She worked well with borderlines, but she tried not to
have more than a couple clients with the disorder in her caseload at a time.
They were exhausting. She couldn’t imagine working exclusively with people with
that diagnosis, and 24/7 at that.

With her back turned to
the client, Kate rummaged through her file cabinet, looking for the brochure
for Clearview Women’s Center. Meanwhile, she was trying to decide if she
believed Tammy’s claim that she had not sent the notes. Was the woman that good
an actress? Yes, as melodramatic and manipulative as Tammy could be at times,
she was indeed a good actress, Kate decided. She found the brochure and turned
toward the woman.

~~~~~~~~

M
aria had been standing
in the kitchen doorway, indulgently watching
Señor
Skip play with the
baby in the living room when the phone had rung. She’d picked up the portable
laying on the kitchen counter. “
Hola.
”

As soon as she’d
determined that the caller was asking to speak to her boss, Maria had given her
standard answer. “She no home. I no speak English good. Call later pleeze.”

She’d started to
disconnect when the caller had said, “Where is she? I’ve got to talk to her.”
Maria hadn’t understood the rest of the English but she’d caught the word
“client” and the voice sounded desperate.

¡Dios mio!
She
felt so bad for her
patrona
’s clients who did not have a loving
familia
.
“She go office. You got number?
Muy bien.
You call her there.”

Skip was balancing the
baby on her new rocking horse, placing her little hands on the handles on
either side of the horse’s head. “Hang on, Edie.” He started rocking the horse
gently back and forth. Edie gave him a big grin.

When the baby seemed to
be getting the hang of how to keep the horse rocking, Skip leaned back against
the sofa, long legs stretched out on the floor in front of him. He glanced at
his watch. Kate had been gone for over an hour.

He was growing
increasingly uncomfortable with the idea that she was in her office on a
holiday weekend, when it was unlikely other tenants in the building would be
working overtime. Of course, she had her client with her. But once the
emergency session was over, she would be alone until he got there.

Skip took out his phone
and called Rose’s cell.

When she answered, he
told her he was starting to get a bad feeling about the whole set-up. What if
the emergency call was a fake just to get Kate into a vulnerable position?

“Call had to be legit.
I saw the client get out of her car. Kate waved to her and then went over and
walked with her into the building.”

Rose’s words should
have reassured him, but the bad feeling wouldn’t go away. “The client was a
woman? What’d she look like?”

“About Kate’s height.
Wasn’t close enough to see her face all that well, but I’d say early to
mid-thirties. Thin. Good dresser. Long straight blonde hair.”

Skip’s heart stopped.
Rose had just described Tammy Wingate.

“Rose, no time to
explain but that client might be who’s been sending the notes. How far away are
you from Kate’s office?”

“A good forty-five
minutes. Call Rob’s cell. I saw his admin assistant coming out as Kate was
going in. Might mean he’s in his office. He can go check on her until one of us
gets there.”

Neither of them
bothered to say goodbye. Skip started searching the contacts on his phone for
Rob’s number while he told Maria he was going over to Kate’s office. She was to
set the alarm system after he left and not answer the door for
anyone
,
no matter what.

Skip raced out the door
just as Rob answered. He was indeed in his office and he promised to go right
down to Kate’s and make sure she was okay.

When Skip tried Kate’s
cell phone, it went straight to voicemail. Either she was still in session, or
something–or someone–had prevented her from turning her phone back on.

~~~~~~~~

A
s Kate escorted Tammy
out of her office, she was startled to see a figure huddled in the far corner
of the waiting room, hunched over a magazine. Kate assumed it was a woman,
based on the length of the mostly gray hair and the fact that the rather shabby
winter coat was yellow. She looked like a homeless person who had managed to
find her way into the building, no doubt hoping to stay warm for awhile.

Kate realized that she
must have forgotten to lock the outer office door when she’d been trying to get
a distraught Tammy into her office. She hated to do it but she would have to
shoo this poor soul back out to the cold street.

Kate said to her
client, “I’ll call the place to see about availability and let you know.”

“Thanks a million,
Kate,” Tammy replied, and went out the door.

Kate took a few steps
toward the hunched-over figure. “I’m very sorry, but you’ll have to leave. I
need to lock up.”

The woman stood and
turned to her. “Kate Huntington, I need to talk to you.”

~~~~~~~~

R
ob had sent his
paralegal, Beth Samuels, downstairs to let Skip into the building. As the big
man raced past her, she called after him, “Should I call the police?”

“Yes,” he yelled over
his shoulder, after less than a second of hesitation. He took the steps of the
central staircase three at a time. His gun was already in his hand when he
paused to listen at the center’s outer door. Hearing nothing, he cautiously
pushed it open. The waiting area was empty.

Kate’s door was ajar.
Skip walked quietly toward it. Two feet away, he froze when he heard a woman’s
raised voice. “Now pick up the note. I want your fingerprints all over it.” The
hysterical edge to the voice made it hard to tell if the speaker was Tammy.

“You’re not going to
get away with this.” Rob’s voice sounded calm, but Skip detected the current of
fear beneath the surface. “Everybody who knows us is going to swear that note
is a fraud. They
know
we’re not lovers and never have been.”

The voices gave Skip a
sense of where Rob and the woman were located. He could only guess that Kate
was at her desk.

“It’s in her
handwriting with her prints on it. They’ll just think you’ve had them fooled.”

Skip raised his gun and
adjusted his stance so he would be facing in the correct direction as he
reached out his left hand toward the door.

The woman’s voice
became accusatory. “If you hadn’t stuck your nose in here, I wouldn’t have to
do this. It’s your own fault that I have to kill you too.”

The woman raised her
gun and aimed it at Rob’s head as the door flew open. A gunshot roared in the
small office.

Kate knew she would
never forget that sound.

~~~~~~~~

A
udrey pulled into her
parents’ driveway and again was relieved to see just her mother’s car there.
She went to the kitchen door and knocked.

After a moment she
knocked again. When no approaching footsteps could be heard, she tried the
knob. It wasn’t locked.

Stepping into her
mother’s kitchen, she heard the sounds of a children’s cartoon coming from the
living room. Mother must be watching TV with Alicia. That’s why she hadn’t
heard her knocking.

Audrey walked across
the kitchen and was almost to the open doorway when she heard a male voice. It
took her a second to realize it wasn’t coming from the TV. “Come here, sweetie.
Granddad’s got a lollipop for you.”

~~~~~~~~

T
he parking lot behind
Kate’s building was teeming with police cruisers, an ambulance and an unmarked
Crown Vic. Rose slammed on her brakes and jumped out of her car, just as a van
pulled in behind her. On it’s side was the emblem for the medical examiner’s
office.

Knowing that meant
someone was dead, Rose’s heart was in her throat as she raced through the back
entrance of the building, flashing her badge at the uniforms who kept trying to
stop her. In the center’s outer office, she elbowed her way past more uniforms
and two paramedics standing idly next to an empty gurney. An officer tried to
grab her but she ducked under his arms.

Racing to Kate’s open
doorway, her eyes frantically scanned the room, and came to rest on Skip and
Kate huddled on the loveseat in one corner, their arms tightly wrapped around
each other. Skip’s head was down, his forehead on Kate’s shoulder. Her face was
buried against the side of his neck. They were both visibly shaking and Rose
could hear Kate crying.

The pearl-handled .38
was laying on Kate’s desk, in an evidence bag.

Rose’s knees started to
buckle in relief when someone grabbed her arms from behind and steadied her.
She spun around, her badge held up in the palm of her hand.

But it wasn’t a cop
behind her. Her knees wobbled again.

Rob looked over Rose’s
shoulder toward the other end of Kate’s office. Rose turned and followed his
line of vision. He was looking at Detective Jones, crouched down a few feet
away. Bradley was standing near her.

Between the two
detectives lay a dead woman.

Rose turned back to Rob
just as she realized that it wasn’t Kate who was crying. Their eyes locked and they
both swallowed hard, struggling to keep from crying themselves as they listened
to the big man’s sobs.